


Technicalities

by Cyangarden



Series: In My Sights [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, I err.. mean sciencing, Set around sometime after Season 3, some cyance!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 08:23:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18774886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyangarden/pseuds/Cyangarden
Summary: Lance learns something about his sniper rifle with the help of someone





	Technicalities

It was another day in the Castle, the members of the team doing their own things. Hunk was doing inspections of the Lions, Coran doing maintenance on the Castle, Shiro and Allura were talking to other coalition members for the next move. Lance in the shooting range, further honing his skill as the sharpshooter of the team. Pidge in the lab, scanning through various radio messages picked up by the Castle to see if there was anything interesting.

When Pidge nonchalantly called Lance the _Sharpshooter_ one time during a mission, something inside Lance sensed something, something different. He somehow felt more complete, making him more confident being a Paladin. Yeah, Shiro acknowledge him before when they freed Slav from the Warden’s hands during their escape from Beta Traz, but when Pidge said it, it had a different _meaning_ to it. It made Lance push further when it comes in training, even making his own routine rather than use one of the presets stored in the computer. Whatever it was, Lance was glad it was happening to him.

Pidge took a break, she left computer running the sorting algorithm automatically but set it to notify her if something of attention came up. When Lance and Pidge got the game console from the Space Mall, she noticed that by not spending so much time in the lab, she had more energy throughout the day instead of crashing down suddenly when night came. After that, she had scheduled breaks. Pidge usually went to Lance’s room to play the videogame, sometimes Lance would be there to play with her but sometimes, he’s not there so she plays on her own. Pidge typed the password to his room, but to only see it empty. She wanted to play with Lance, maybe he was somewhere. He went to the lounge then to kitchen, but he still wasn’t around.

Pidge thought about the shooting range, she did notice Lance spending more time going there after she called him Sharpshooter. Lance’s skill became more apparent after she called him the name one time. It amazed her and made her admire his skill, but she didn’t want to admit it out loud that he ended up being right about his name for him. Probably to avoid the teasing from Lance, she thought his head might get to big and he might not let it go. Though she thought she was a bit harsh on him when she doubted the use of the name. She wished she could do something to make it up to him. Lance was happy with his skill, but she felt she still needed to do something about that _incident_ — or that was what she keeps referring to.

Lance moved cover to cover, engaging the targets along the way. His goal for training? Practicing fast transitions between targets to shoot them down as fast as possible. His reaction was something he wanted to work on after Sven almost tackled him down back in the alternate reality. Though nothing bad came out of it, he did not want that to happen again, especially if it would be _someone else_ ’s life. He was practicing against target plates rather than sentries, he added a shot timer to measure his reaction time. He had a goal set up of only having a maximum of 1.5 second reaction per target, from the target popup, to aiming his rifle then to shooting it. However, he would still give himself some allowance depending on the context of the target. Lance moved forward to shoot, until he heard a target popping up behind him. He thought it would be too slow to do a 180-degree turn and engage the target, so he spun around but decided to fall on his back. The move was intended to surprise the supposed enemy and might cause the shot fired at him to miss by suddenly presenting a lower profile. Lance fired two shots to the target when he hit the floor, then quickly stood up to scan for more targets.

“What’s the reaction time for the last shot?” Lance asked the shooting range AI.

The AI replied, “1.9 seconds.”

“That’s—” Lance was about to comment but then cutoff by someone.

“Not bad, impressive.” Pidge was standing on the doorway of the shooting range.

“Oh, yeah, I guess so.” Lance said.

Pidge gave Lance a small smile, “I see you’re spending more time here.”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to train.” Lance winked at her. “By the way, what are you doing here? I thought you’re doing something in the lab?” Lance rarely saw her in the shooting range, he wondered why she was there.

Pidge gave out a heavy sigh, “I decided to take a break, it gets quite boring there really.”

“Wow, Pidge and taking a break? What a weird combination.” Lance joked.

Pidge got back at him, “Hey! I find it really good for me, plus playing KBP is more fun.” She almost forgot what she came here for, “I was actually about to invite you to play Killbot, but then I saw you’re busy… Next time?”

“How about later? You know, being the Sharpshooter here and working on something.”

Pidge smiled at him, “Yeah sure.” Then she remembered the _incident_ back in Beta Traz, and talking about being the Sharpshooter, she asked him, “You wanna see something?” As Pidge went to the console to open a preset scenario.

“What is it?” Lance was curious.

The shooting environment switched to a long-range scenario and a small structure appeared with target sentries and a ‘friendly sentry’ inside.

Pidge instructed Lance, “Change your Bayard into a sniper rifle.”

“Okay, I see where this is going but how am I going to see the targets? They’re clearly obstructed.” Lance exclaimed.

“Just aim through your scope.” She told him.

“Is there something supposed to happen?”

“Hold on,” Pidge entered a command into the console, “There.”

The targets appeared in Lance’s scope, “Woah,” he was amazed that he could. Lance moved his scope around the building, checking the scan coverage of his scope. He wondered how it operated, “So how does this work? My scope seeing through the walls?”

Pidge explained, “Your scope is actually indirectly seeing the targets. The scope is not emitting anything but is receiving something over there.” Pidge pointed at the small structure.

Lance looked up to where she was pointing, “Really?”

Pidge continued, “Yep. There’s one sentry inside that’s ‘friendly’, it’s sending out a sonar signal that bounces around the room or obstacles to determine whatever is behind. When the signal returns, the suit forms the ‘map’ of the surrounding and it sends it to your scope. Remember how bats use sound to see in the dark or move around?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s pretty much the same principle but on a more refined scale.”

“You said the friendly sentry is sending out the sonar, does that mean you need to hack an enemy sentry to let me see through walls?” Lance questioned her.

“No, there’s no need to. I just simulated the capability in the sentry because our Paladin suits has it. The entire suit is a sonar array itself, capable of sending out an omnidirectional signal for proper 360-degree coverage. The suit actually has a phased array sonar to be specific.”

“What does the last part mean?”

“Phased array means that instead of having a single transceiver module to send out a signal, the system is composed of smaller modules that work together to send out the signal. Doing that increases image resolution, scan range and improves scan time. Also, kinda like an incandescent bulb versus an LED light, the latter one being better in general.”

“Wow, that sounds cool.” Lance sounded amazed from what he was hearing.

“Also, since the suit is sending out the signal, it’s able to ‘tag’ the contacts found by the suit to determine if it’s friendly or a bad guy. There’s already a tag information database in the suit of known contacts, but there’s still an option to add one if there are friendlies nearby. I’m still not sure about the specifics of the frequency used by our suits, but it’s high enough that the so called ‘image resolution’ would produce a good map. A high image resolution means that we or the system can distinguish contacts clearly. Like being able to determine that an enemy sentry is actually an enemy sentry instead of something like a support column. Whatever material the sonar would hit would produce a particular sonar signature that can be unique from one another, an algorithm is used to sort out that stuff. It’s a very useful thing.”

“If I’m getting these things correctly, the suit ‘maps’ out the surrounding area to see if there are contacts then the processed map goes to my scope? So, I’m able to see because of the suits?”

“Yeah, you got it.” Pidge added another detail, “By the way, the suit has around 20 feet of mapping distance. Any more than that, then you lose image resolution and the map wouldn’t be as good.”

Lance sounded astonished, “That’s a lot of things, I didn’t know it was that complicated.”

“There’s still the data link for the suit-scope communication which is a neat thing itse—” Pidge was cut off by a notification from her lab computer, “Oh, I have to go. Sorry for cutting this.” Pidge sounded a bit disappointed.

Lance replied, “Hey, don’t worry, I know I’m not good with those things, but I’m glad you still took your time to explain those things to me. I did my best to understand them and so far, I did get them all.”

Pidge placed her hand on his shoulder to help reassure him, “Don’t say things like that, Lance. You’re smart in your own way, don’t let anyone else say otherwise. And sorry for when I was being harsh to you when you just want to learn new things, I’m still getting used to making things explained simpler.”

“It’s alright Pidge, I know I sometimes get annoying.”

Pidge just gave him a hug, she wrapped her arms around her waist and pressed her face on his chest. She suddenly thought of doing it, maybe it was the right thing to do.

Lance was surprised when she did, but slowly dropped his arms and wrapped them around her. The hug gave him a slight blush on his face, but _thankfully_ for him, they were facing away each other.

They stayed for a few seconds before pulling back.

“I didn’t know I needed that hug, thank you again.”

“Later, Lance?”

“Yeah, later, I’m waitin’ for you.” Lance gave her a smile.

With that, Pidge went back to the lab and Lance continued with his training.

Their interaction just made Lance more pumped up, suddenly feeling _alive_ and ready for the challenges set.

 

 

 

 

 

Lance, Veronica and Kinkade were in an overwatch position on top of an abandoned building. They’re providing sniper support for the ground team who are about to infiltrate a Galra stronghold.

Keith asked for the support team’s cover, “Lance, you ready to cover us when we get inside?”

Lance confirmed, “Ready to go.”

Pidge and Keith teleported inside the stronghold using Kosmo.

Pidge said, “We need to find a port where I can hack in. A control panel or a substation.”

“Got it.” Keith replied. Then two ran through the hallways.

Lance saw the two moving inside, “Got you, Keith. Scanning for hostiles,” Lance cautioned them, “Sentries on the other side of the east wall.”

Pidge and Keith teleported away from the hostiles.

Keith asked, “Lance?”

“You’re clear.” Lance replied.

Pidge and Keith stopped by the column where the tunnels were splitting in two directions.

Lance instructed them, “You guys are gonna have to take the right tunnel. But wait,” he warned, “There are sentries approaching both tunnels. Hold position.” Lance counted down, “Coming up to you in three, two, one.”

Pidge and Keith teleported behind the sentries then they moved towards their objective.

Back in the abandoned building, Kinkade asked how Lance was able to see through the walls.

“That thing pick up heat signatures?” Kinkade asked.

Lance explained, “It actually locks on to their suits’ sonar imaging and renders a 3D map within a 20-foot perimeter. It’s cool Paladin stuff.”

Even though there weren’t much stuff described, Kinkade was still amazed by it, “Must be pretty neat with all the advanced tech you have out there.”

Lance smirked, “Yeah, it is. Especially when _someone_ teaches you about it. It’s amazing.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Tfw you have to dig out the meta you have written because you forgot the explanation 😅
> 
> Here's a link to the meta post about how Lance's sniper scope works:  
> https://cyangarden.tumblr.com/post/184127473881/how-lances-sniper-scope-works


End file.
